By Oso Abidemi 

President Bola Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Community Engagement, Abiodun Essiet, has met with Plateau cleric, Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, and leaders of Miyetti Allah as part of renewed efforts to strengthen peace in the state.

Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on Sunday, said Essiet was deployed to Plateau as a peace emissary to engage religious, traditional, and community leaders over rising tensions in parts of the state.

During her two-day visit, Essiet held discussions with Dachomo, the regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Barkin Ladi, on the role of faith-based leadership in promoting unity and social development.

She also met with Miyetti Allah representatives and addressed widows, conveying President Tinubu’s message of ethnic reconciliation.

Essiet later met Fulani leaders in Barkin Ladi to encourage dialogue between pastoralists and farming communities, before conducting a workshop on establishing a community peace structure across the 17 Local Government Areas of Jos.

She also held a closed-door meeting with the Irigwe community, Miyetti Allah, and youth leaders from Bassa LGA, focusing on sustaining peace and strengthening the 17-member peace committee working on reconciliation between the groups.

Onanuga noted that a key early success of the visit was the resolution of a dispute involving the destruction of a farm in Gyel district of Jos South, which had led to the seizure of two cows.

Essiet reiterated President Tinubu’s commitment to inclusive governance and grassroots peacebuilding, emphasising that community-based peace structures are crucial to long-term stability in the North Central region.

By Oso Abidemi 

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana, SAN, has urged Nigerians who paid ransom to kidnappers to sue the Federal Government and demand a refund, insisting that the state has failed in its constitutional duty to protect citizens.

Speaking at the opening of the Legal Year of the University of Abuja’s Faculty of Law, Falana said the government cannot claim to uphold the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights while ordinary Nigerians continue to bear the cost of their own safety.

He criticised the government’s selective response to abductions, noting that swift rescue efforts are mobilised when judges or top officials are kidnapped, while ordinary citizens are left at the mercy of criminals.

Falana argued that demanding refunds through the courts would not only enforce victims’ rights but also compel the government to prioritise security.

His remarks come amid alarming statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, which reported that Nigerians paid N2.23 trillion in ransom between May 2023 and April 2024.

The NBS survey estimated over 2.2 million kidnapping incidents within the period, with an average ransom of N2.7 million per case.

Falana maintained that all citizens are equal before the law and deserve equal protection, urging the government to treat every kidnapping case with urgency and seriousness.

By Oso Abidemi

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Bauchi Zone, has dismissed the Federal Government’s claim that insufficient funds prevented it from meeting the full salary demands of university lecturers.

Zonal Coordinator, Prof. Timothy Namu, told journalists in Jos that the real issue is not a lack of money but a lack of political will and misplaced priorities.

He cited figures from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), showing significant revenue growth for both states and the Federal Government between 2022 and 2024.

According to him, FAAC allocations to states rose from ₦3.92 trillion in 2022 to ₦5.81 trillion in 2024, an increase of over 62 per cent, while federal allocations grew from ₦3.42 trillion to ₦4.65 trillion, representing more than 70 per cent growth.

“These statistics confirm that education suffers not because funds are unavailable but because government priorities lie elsewhere,” Namu said.

He noted that the ASUU National Executive Council (NEC), at its meeting in Jalingo from November 8-9, rejected the Federal Government’s proposed salary increase, describing it as “a drop in the ocean” and far below what is needed to curb brain drain in universities.

Namu added that although ASUU suspended its warning strike after partially achieving its objectives, nearly a week to the expiration of the four-week deadline given to the government, nothing meaningful has been done.

ASUU appealed to traditional rulers, students, civil society organisations, the Nigeria Labour Congress, and the National Assembly to press the government to address the union’s demands to prevent another round of crises in the university system.